We were pretty much all packed before we went to bed last night, which made for a more relaxing start to a travel day. We had breakfast in the hotel. We have been really pleased with the hotel, the Hotel San Francesco. It worked out really well in terms of location and it was great having the restaurant for breakfast and some dinners. The staff were all great, so two thumbs up for the hotel.
We ordered a taxi to the airport and holy cow, did we set a land speed record. A 30 minute trip was over and done in about 15 minutes. I peeked at the speedometer and saw we were going 145kph, which is about 90mph. It was kind of scary because all the taxis were in the passing lane, all bumper to bumper, going 145kph.
We had an easy time getting checked in and getting through security. They seem so much more reasonable in Europe. The best part is we didn’t have to take our computers out of our bags, a godsend, for sure.
A funny thing in the airport was I saw a poster of the Spanish Steps. Since we didn’t get to them yesterday during our sightseeing, I took a photo of the poster, so here are the Spanish Steps.
We flew Iberian Airline from Rome to Madrid, a 2-1/2 hour flight All the announcements were in Spanish, Italian, and English. The pilot gave a long talk about our route, in all 3 languages. We flew over Sardinia, Majorca, and Ibiza. I love taking airplane photos, so here are some I took.
We had again checked our suitcases rather than struggle to get them on the plane. I don’t mind checking bags on a direct flight when we’ve gotten to the airport in plenty of time. Our bags were practically the first ones onto the carousel, lucky us.
Then to a taxi for the ride into Madrid. Well, this taxi driver gave our Rome cabbie a run for his money. While we didn’t hit 145kph, we zigged and zagged through traffic both on the highway and then in central Madrid. It was rather frightening. The taxi driver didn’t really know where our hotel was. He dumped us out on a main street and said that no cars were allowed on the street where our hotel was. He pointed us in a direction and told us to walk. That was kind of awful, not knowing where the hotel was and having to drag our luggage over brick sidewalks. I put Christine on a bench in a square and went down around the corner to look for the hotel. Fortunately, it wasn’t far away and we were able to get ourselves to the hotel without too much trouble.
Our Madrid hotel is called SleepN Atocha. It’s a quirky place, but the staff are super nice and got us checked in and one young woman escorted us to our room. Our room is small, but comfortable and has a little Juliet balcony. There are are number of eateries in the pedestrian walkway below and around the square up the street.
We settled in and rested a bit. Then we went in search of an early dinner. We’ll have a bit of a challenge with our meals in Spain because dinner starts at about 8:00pm. Lunch is typically tapas from about 2:00-4:00pm. We’re not late dinner eaters so we’ll have to figure out how to work around normal Spanish meal times. Today, we settled in at a nice trattoria and had a pizza. I know, we’re now in Spain, not Italy. But it was convenient to the hotel and we were tired and just wanted something to eat.
We ended our travel day early, so we were tucked into bed by 8:00pm. Tomorrow is our one touring day in Madrid so we’ll have to make the most of our time here.